Life can be pretty straight without TV too.
I grew up without TV, but it was no big deal - I didn't miss it because I had never had it, and besides we had heaps of cardboard boxes, some scissors and sticky-tape to keep us occupied.
Peter and I got our first little black and white TV in the '70s, soon after we were married. I was off work with a streaming head-cold at the time, and after a few days of staring at the walls of our tiny flat until I was ready to climb them, we decided it was time to become TV owners.
We spent most of the '80s on Mer in the Torres Strait -no electricity, no running water, no newspapers/magazines, minimal radio reception, and of course no TV. In the evenings we surrounded ourselves with hurricane lanterns to read books, but mostly we went to bed early. When our four babies were a little older, videos were invented and we gathered around our solar-powered 12volt TV to watch "The Man from Snowy River" on our 5 inch screen.
Returning to mainland Australia, we gleefully purchased a (larger!) colour TV, and the gaps in our children's cultural education caused by years of island isolation were quickly filled.
In China for the last two years, TV viewing took on a whole new meaning. We could only stomach so much of the one English channel CCTV9 with its propaganda-ised programs, and we bought (and watched) several hundred DVDs.
Here in Turkey we found DigiTurk satellite TV is quite reasonably priced, and so we have access to a good number of English channels with movies, documentaries, news, and sports.
But the TV itself is horrible. Its the sound. If you turn it up loud enough to hear, the music (and especially adverts) is burry and rattles the whole place.
Impulsively Peter dropped into the local supermarket (its hardly what you'd call a department store) and bought a really big TV. It was only 289YTL - about $269 AU. No problem.
But then - how do you get something like that home? He had to ring Ali to get someone interpreting, and was told that Migros don't have a delivery service, but a couple of young employees would help him out. Peter stood there for a moment wondering what form of transport they would produce - a van? a car? a big-wheeled trolley?
Oh, no! A shopping trolley?
So these two young guys hoisted the huge box onto the top of a shopping trolley, and set off ... up the escalator with the whole contraption tipping perilously, then out the wrong door (despite Peter's protestations) around the back of the shopping centre, considerably lengthening the trip home.
On a good day its about a ten-minute walk down the narrow streets from the supermarket to our apartment block.But this was late Saturday afternoon, pretty much peak hour.
Besides being always crowded, and very narrow (barely a car's width, with metal rails or cement mushrooms to protect the sidewalk) the streets are laid with ancient bricks or cobbles.
So it was "fun" trundling through the crowd, "Pardon! Pardon!" (like the French "parrrrdon", not English), with the two young chaps following faithfully and the big box rattling itself to pieces.
When I came home from teaching he had it all set up. Only one thing left to do.
Well, someone has to remove that sticker!
I have NO idea what the sticker is there for. It seems to serve no purpose whatsoever. We have seen several of these big TVs on sale in the supermarkets, and they always have the "Please Remove" sticker.
I suppose it would be more worrying if it said "Please do NOT remove" because then it would be really hard to decide what to do about it.
Oh but it is nice to watch my favourite shows without the TV blurring all the sounds.
So then Peter had to have Ali around to show off the new TV. A few moments later they rushed out to buy a DVD player.
Each.And some plug in speakers.
So now I am sitting here watching some of my favourite musical movies while Peter plays with the speakers trying to get them just right.
Now maybe we can drown out the noise from the people upstairs.
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